Average rates in New York Metro, NY
| Loan Type | Today | Change | Last Week |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 yr fixed | 4.18% | 4.27% | |
| 15 yr fixed | 3.25% | 3.35% | |
| 30 yr fixed refi | 4.17% | 4.26% | |
| 15 yr fixed refi | 3.24% | 3.34% | |
| 30 yr jumbo | 4.39% | 4.41% | |
| 5/1 ARM refi | 3.47% | 3.62% |
Source: Bankrate.com
Nearly two-thirds of divorce attorneys report an increase in prenuptial agreements over the past three years. Protection of the increased value of property was the leading asset spouses want protected.
A clear majority of 63% of divorce attorneys cited an increase in prenuptial agreements during the past three years in a recent survey of American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyer (AAML) members. The top three items most commonly covered in prenups throughout this period of time were noted as “protection of separate property” by 80% of respondents, “alimony/spousal maintenance” at 77% and “division of property” with a 72% total. Interestingly enough, 46% also noted an increase in women initiating requests for these agreements.
“As the financial and real estate markets continue to improve, there is a greater awareness of risk to possibly sharing these gains in a divorce,” said Alton Abramowitz, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. “The trend of divorcing spouses fighting over which one has to take possession of a devalued home and other depreciated assets appears to be coming to an end.”
Overall, 63% of AAML members have cited an increase in the number of prenuptial agreements during the past three years, while 36% stated no change, and 1% saw a decrease. In addition to the top three prenup items selected, the next three most common coverage areas picked by respondents were “protection of the increase of value in separate property” at 62% followed by “inheritance rights” at 39% with 23% choosing “community property division.”
http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/10/peaking-prenups-prove-housing-is-hot/
The bitter Congressional negotiations that led to a temporary raising of the debt ceiling last week may have a lingering effect on consumer attitudes and spending may pose significant downside risks to economic activity in the current quarter, Fannie Mae’s chief economist said.
Growth slowed in the third quarter, although recent fiscal risks threaten a previously expected pickup in growth in the current quarter, according to Fannie Mae’s Economic & Strategic Research Group. Consumers remain key to the outlook, but factors such as the recent federal government shutdown and the furlough of 500,000 workers, as well as the debt ceiling debate, which was resolved temporarily on October 16, appear to be weighing on consumer confidence and tempering real consumer spending. As a result of the fiscal events and the slowing momentum in economic activity from the second quarter to the third quarter, full-year growth is expected to come in at 1.9 percent, a slight downgrade from 2.0 percent in the prior forecast.
Fannie Mae’s October economic and housing forecast is largely unchanged from September’s forecast as it anticipated the modest levels of consumer spending seen toward the end of the third quarter.
However, fiscal uncertainties associated with the federal government shutdown, the protracted negotiations to raise the debt ceiling, and the timing of the Federal Reserve’s tapering of its asset purchase program, pose,” said Fannie Mae Chief Economist Doug Duncan.
“Our October economic and housing forecast is largely unchanged from the previous forecast as we anticipated the modest levels of consumer spending seen toward the end of the third quarter. However, fiscal uncertainties associated with the federal government shutdown, the protracted negotiations to raise the debt ceiling, and the timing of the Federal Reserve’s tapering of its asset purchase program, pose significant downside risks to economic activity in the current quarter,” said Fannie Mae Chief Economist Doug Duncan. “In particular, the contentious Congressional negotiations that led ultimately to Congress raising the debt ceiling may have a lingering effect on consumer attitudes and spending, as was seen following the 2011 negotiations,” Duncan said.
“On the bright side, these fiscal policy issues appear to have had only minimal effect on the housing market to date, which continues to improve overall,” said Duncan. “Notably, the rapid appreciation of home prices during the past year has contributed significantly to household net worth gains and may help to cushion some of the fallout from the fiscal policy debate. Also, the Fed’s continuation of securities purchases will likely keep mortgage rates low, enabling more homeowners to take advantage of refinance opportunities.”
Fannie still forecasts that total sales will end the year at 5.549 million units and home prices will rise 8.3 percent on the FHFA index.
http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2013/10/debt-ceiling-debate-could-hurt-housing/
Photo via Forbes
Seven years ago, the four brothers behind the Hinduja Group, a multi-billion dollar transnational conglomerate, laid down $95M for a London mansion designed for King George IV by architect John Nash. Sure, they were already living in a 25,000-square-foot mansion across the street, but this opportunity presented the chance to own “something grander,” according to a recent Forbes piece. After all, what’s two across-the-street mansions for guys worth $8B? After investing another $95M into restoring and renovating the building—”nearly gutting it to its bare brickwork in several places” and hiring up to 140 people, at one point—the 67,000-square-foot palace was finished two years ago, and now plays host to a rotating stable of frolicking billionaire guests. Inside: Greco-Moorish ceilings, a half-ton Murano-glass chandelier, six formal sitting rooms, 25 bedrooms, a “leisure zone,” and a “Gold Room” with a gold-leafed ceiling. Taking into account the mansion listed for almost $400M down the block, someone from the London consultancy Knight Frank appraised the home at $500M. So yes, this is “something grander,” for sure, yet the Hinduja brothers haven’t actually moved: they still live across the street.
Photo via Forbes
· Carlton House Terrace: The Hindujas’ New $500 Million Real Estate Masterpiece [Forbes via Homes of the Rich] · Park-Front London Mansion Privately Listed For $380M [Curbed National]
The size of your basement is a large factor. Some homeowners only remodel part of their basements to curb total remodeling costs. Any project with a large square footage will be more expensive as it means more materials and longer construction time. Continue Reading
For a basement remodel, you’ll have to consider walls, ceilings, flooring, lighting, and insulation. If you’re adding a bathroom, then you’ll deal with installing countertops, cabinets, a toilet and even a shower or bathtub. All of these options mean various price ranges, depending on the types of materials selected. It’s important to figure out your budget and then choose the most important aspects to focus on for the remodel.
Your basement will likely need to be fitted with additional wires to support more lights and electronics. You will need to hire a licensed electrician if you plan to install additional overhead light fixtures, outlets and other components that require additional wiring.
If you’re adding a bathroom, then you’ll need to hire a licensed plumber to install the necessary elements. The more you decide to install in your bathroom, the higher the bathroom remodeling costs will be. Adding a shower or bathtub might be necessary if you plan to use the basement as a guest suite. Otherwise a half bath may be perfect if the basement is used as a living or family room space.
Adding a bedroom or another living space to your home might cost you a lot by the end, but you will see a return on your investment when you go to resell your home. Having another room adds value to the house, which means someone will pay more for your home when it comes time to put it on the market.
When it comes to purchasing a new home, school districts play a significant factor in the final decision. In light of this, a new study revealed that home prices escalated significantly in highly favored school zones. Per Redfin Blog:
Everyone assumes that better school districts tend to have bigger homes, higher quality homes, larger lots, or a more prime location (views, quiet streets, etc). We’ve debunked that assumption. When accounting for size, on average, people pay $50 more per square foot for homes in top-ranked school zones compared with homes served by average-ranked schools. This means that the price differences for similar homes located near each other but served by different schools can range from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A seminar about the science of how forests and wetlands work to help limit damage from flooding will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Sept. 24 at the Desmond Fish Library, 472 Route 403, Garrison,
Admission is free, but registration is recommended.
Marilyn Wyman, team leader of the Natural Resources Program with Cornell University Cooperative Extension of Columbia and Greene Counties, will talk about the relationship between forests and flood mitigation: how forests slow the flood of water, increase filtration and absorption, and help to stabilize stream banks. She will also discuss some of the problems facing important forested land, including invasive species, fragmentation and the lack of regeneration.
Laura Heady, biodiversity outreach coordinator with the Hudson River Estuary Program and Cornell University’s Department of Natural Resources, will share her knowledge and research about wetlands: their role in maintaining clean water, controlling floodwaters and protecting shorelines and stream banks from erosion and property damage.
This seminar is part of a series sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension and Cornell University, in partnership with the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program and New York State Water Resources Institute. The Hudson Estuary Watershed Resiliency Project is an educational initiative designed to help municipal officials and stream-side landowners prepare for floods and climate change in the Hudson Valley. Educators from the Cornell Cooperative Extension associations in Columbia, Greene, Dutchess, Orange and Putnam counties are teaching municipal personnel and landowners in target areas about flood preparedness.
Twitter, the online texting service on steroids at only 140 characters is often a challenge for those with a traditional marketing mindset. It’s more about brutal brevity, smart succinctness and simple shortness than monstering the masses with multi-media sensory overload.
It’s all about doing more with less.
Creating and then marketing content with Twitter is more about tempting the click than revealing all your secrets at once. Twitter should be seen as the teaser social network. It offers the promise of much more beyond the link.
It’s unsophisticated ways are its charm and its fatal attraction for celebrities who dare to tweet while under the influence of substances, emotion or plain stupidity.
Twitter is sometimes seen as an inbox when it is more like a fleeting torrent that streams and screams its content past you. Often never to be seen again. It pushes the “I don’t want to miss out” syndrome.
This led to the creation of Twitter tools like Hootsuite that organises Tweets into lists for reading later. The corralling of Tweets into hashtag categories can be an effective way to manage Twitter that is sometimes seen as similar to the ungainly management that is like herding cats.
There are 3 core elements to a tweet. Get these right and you are on your way to using Twitter well. They may seem simple but they are often poorly executed or ignored.
So what do you need to hone, polish and include to make your tweets sing and dance?
Stumbling onto Twitter with poor intent can lead to wasted time and effort. You need to have some specific goals in mind.
Some goals that are worth considering.
There are more goals than this but bait the Twitter hook, get focused and strategic and maybe those tweets will lead to blogging nirvana.
So here are 10 top tips for creating, marketing and sharing content on Twitter.
The following is an excerpt from The Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen (Process Media, 2010). Homesteading from their bungalow two blocks off of Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles, Coyne and Knutzen offer up scores of tips and step-by-step projects for sustainable, self-reliant living in a bustling metropolis. With more and more urbanites looking to become farmers and gardeners, Coyne and Knutzen’s fantastic guidebook couldn’t be timelier, and the duo’s lighthearted, thrifty approach to self-sufficiency shows there is greater power and happiness in creating than in spending. This excerpt is from Chapter 2, “Essential Projects.”
These containers make it easy to grow vegetables in pots. They are ideal for apartment gardening, but are so useful that everyone should consider using them to maximize their growing space.
The problem with growing food in pots is that pots dry out quickly and it’s all too easy to forget to water. Irregular watering causes all sorts of problems for sensitive fruits and vegetables. Container gardening is also water-intensive. During a heat wave it may mean visiting the plants with the watering can two or even three times every day — obviously not a practical scheme for someone who works away from home, or someone with any kind of life at all.
An elegant solution exists in the form of self-watering containers. Rather than having a hole in the bottom of the pot, a self-watering container (SWC) has a reservoir of water at the bottom, and water leaches upward into the soil by various mechanisms, keeping it constantly moist. The top of the pot is covered with a layer of plastic that discourages evaporation. Depending on how deep the water reservoir is, it’s possible to go about a week between fill-ups. This arrangement, combined with the plastic layer, prevents both over-watering and under-watering that can occur with conventional pots. In other words, it takes the guesswork and anxiety out of watering.
Kelly says: I’m going to tell you right now that you can buy yourself a self-watering container at earthbox.com. It’s great to make SWCs with found materials and all, but if these instructions make your eyes cross, or if you just don’t have time, there is no shame in trotting off with your credit card and ordering a couple of these ready-made. They start at about $40.
Erik says: Au contraire, ma petite amie! All it takes is two 5-gallon buckets, a few other easily scavenged items and about an hour’s worth of time. Those Earthboxes are damned expensive and my time is cheap.
A few years back, an Internet hero named Josh Mandel figured out several different techniques for building DIY self-watering containers out of old buckets, soda bottles, storage tubs, etc. His plans are widely disseminated online, and you’ll find links to his instructional PDF files on our website.
Inspired by Mandel’s methods, we started making our own self-watering containers. Each SWC is a little different, because each one, being made of found materials, is an improvisation. We’re going to show you how to make a simple SWC out of two 5-gallon buckets. (See several of these 5-gallon self-watering containers in use on a Chicago rooftop garden.) After you have the basic principles down, improvising future containers on your own out of whatever you have on hand should be easy.
The 5-gallon size described is good for one big plant. Try a basil plant in it, especially if you like pesto. Basil thrives with the steady moisture, as does Italian parsley, so both herbs grow huge in SWCs. Or plant a tomato, but be sure it is a small tomato. Look for types designated “patio” or “basket” tomatoes. These are bred to perform well in tight conditions. A 5-gallon container may seem big, but tomatoes have some of the deepest roots of all vegetables. If you plant an ordinary tomato in a SWC, its roots may find their way into the reservoir, and then it would become waterlogged.
For your next project, we recommend that you visit Josh Mandel’s PDFs for instructions on how to construct a larger, slightly more complex container out of 8- to 10-gallon storage tubs. That size SWC is good for growing a little salad garden, a stand of greens, a patch of strawberries or even a blueberry bush.
It all starts with providing a water reservoir at the bottom of your container. You can do this either by nesting two containers together (the top one holds soil, the bottom one water), or by making some kind of divider that sits toward the bottom of a single container and holds the soil above the reservoir. However you construct it, the barrier between the soil and water should be full of small holes for ventilation.
The water is pulled up from the reservoir and into the soil by means of something called a wicking chamber. This can be a perforated tube, a basket, a cup or anything full of holes that links the soil to the water. The soil in the chamber(s) becomes saturated, and it feeds moisture to the rest of the soil.
The reservoir is refilled by means of a pipe that passes through the soil compartment down to the very bottom of the container.
The last essential element is a hole drilled into the side of the container at the highest point of the reservoir. This is an overflow hole that prevents you from oversaturating your plants.
Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/print.aspx?id={4FC5844B-9152-4A0F-864E-CAAD12330AD3}#ixzz2fFeJzSLw
